Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

More Proof of Obama’s Amazing Time Traveling Powers

How powerful is Barack Obama? So powerful that he apparently manages to go back in time and cause officials at a car company that went out of business almost 25 years ago to worry about the impact of his terrible policies on their company. Rep. Marsha Blackburn said this during an MSNBC interview:

CHIRS JENSING (HOST): Let me ask you about some of the things going on on the campaign trail, and there’s a controversy about Mitt Romney telling voters that jeep is going to move production to China. According to the company that’s entirely false. Is he lying about that?

BLACKBURN: Oh, well, I don’t know. I haven’t talked with with the campaign staff about that. I will say this. For workers in the auto industry, across the board, whether it is GM, whether it’s Nissan, whether it’s American Motors, individuals are very concerned about the impact of regulation that the EPA and OSHA and other federal agencies are heaping on our manufacturers.

American Motors, which at one point was headed by Mitt Romney’s father, went out of business in 1988. He must have used the same time machine he used to go back to 1961 to plant the fake announcements of his own birth in two Hawaiian newspapers to cover up his Kenyan birth.

Yeah! Damn OSHA for making us put safety guards on all our equipment and not allowing us to leave live, bare electrical wires laying in puddles of water. And don’t get me started about the EPA. Why, if we want to dump lead residues into Lake Michigan, we should be able to do so.

Time was that politicians would be embarrassed by exposing their ignorance about an important matter like this, because they were expected to actually understand things that they talk about. Nowadays it’s business as usual – politicians have to fund-raise 24/7 and don’t have time to learn about the issues. They are just handed a stack of talking points (written most likely by an intern who got all his info from wikipedia) right before the interview and repeat what they’re told.

But just think…if OSHA and EPA regulations were eliminated…just think of the additional profits that would go to the business!!

Why that would benefit dozens of stockholders (really only helps the ones that own tens of thousands of shares or more). I mean think of those stockholders that have suffered so severely in this economy. Why I bet a couple of them only have 3 houses now…

I’m sorry to be a contrarian today, but giving attention to this comment (where she obviously misspoke, and not misspoke in the “I meant every word I said but I want you to like me if you disagree with my point, so I am providing you with a way for you to dismiss my position as nothing more than ‘misspeaking'” sense) would be the same as caring about the President accidently saying 58 states that one time.

Sure, we can laugh about her misstatement, since it fits the larger narrative we’ve seen where conservatives make all sorts of (non-misspoken) statements about the President that would require him having time-traveling abilities, but we should be careful not to the other side’s level in pointing to it with any seriousness. I would like to believe Ed understands that she misspoke, but nothing he wrote indicates that.

@11 What’s your evidence that she misspoke? What do you think she meant to say? I wouldn’t compare this to “57 states”, clearly content Obama did not intend. It’s more like “Russia is our greatest geopolitical foe”, a comment that reveals she isn’t very up to date on what’s going on.

I think it is wrong to suggest that her actual position is that a company that no longer exists is concerned about President Obama’s policies. We can joke, but we shouldn’t take the position that she actually intended to imply that his policies are affecting past companies.

I think the most rational explanation is that she tried to list off a couple of current car companies, and for some reason American Motors is a company that comes to mind easier for her than others. The specific companies were irrelevant to her, as her argument was prefaced by saying it applies to the entire industry, but rather than leaving it at “across the board”, she wanted to make a statement that would make a better impact with the listeners, and so she tried to name names.

If the “across the board” comment indicates that it applied to all companies, and then she tried to list just a few of the companies, but mentioned a company that no longer exists, why wouldn’t we think she just misspoke?

I guess you can take the position that she believes American Motors still exists, but the evidence for that is no stronger than the evidence suggesting that President Obama believes there are 57 states.

If the “across the board” comment indicates that it applied to all companies, and then she tried to list just a few of the companies, but mentioned a company that no longer exists, why wouldn’t we think she just misspoke?

Because there is no evidence that she meant to say something else. The most parsimonious interpretation of what she said is that she meant to say what she said but is too ignorant of the auto industry to know that American Motors no longer exists. I didn’t, it’s not exactly every-man knowledge.

I guess you can take the position that she believes American Motors still exists, but the evidence for that is no stronger than the evidence suggesting that President Obama believes there are 57 states.

You’ve got the theory that a bubbleheaded know-nothing (check out her other interviews if you think this characterization is unkind) isn’t up to date on what car companies exist, a somewhat arcane bit of trivia, versus thinking a professor of Harvard Law doesn’t know something most schoolchildren know. They aren’t remotely the same.

This is a total misunderstanding of the time-warp that’s going on. The real time-warp is going on is in Mitt’s head. He is thinking that American Motors is still run by the Rmoney family and that Mitt is going to make the deal with China to send all the jobs there.

Fair enough. Since I’m not familiar with this Representative, maybe I’m giving her more benefit of the doubt than she deserves, but in the end if the worst you can say about her statement is that she believes a car company still exists even though they closed in the 80s… oh well.

individuals are very concerned about the impact of regulation that the EPA and OSHA and other federal agencies are heaping on our manufacturers.

It’s all part of Mittens’ jobs plan. When a cut-price faulty valve release toxic fumes onto the unventilated factory floor you shouldn’t think of it as a tragedy but as 30 new positions are now avalible, you know, lemons, lemonade and all that.
[/Randroid off]
Now I’ll go and and vomit a little.

I have no idea why she mentioned the ones she did, but I don’t really think it matters all that much. Maybe she used to own a Nissan Altima and so it’s what she thinks of when she thinks of cars?

It would be similar to someone saying that the fast food industry is against something, and then name-dropping McDonald’s, KFC, and some fast food restaurant from a couple decades ago that doesn’t exist anymore (I’m not able to think of an example). Would you care why they didn’t mention Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway, or Taco Bell?

What I find sad is that we’re talking about that part of her statement, rather than the fact that she blatantly ignored the question and just threw this information out there as a distraction. And so it’s possible she intentionally mentioned a non-existent car company, in hopes that such frivolous detail would be the focus of her response, rather than focusing on her refusal to account for the Romney campaign lying about Jeep. It’s unlikely, but possible, and even if it wasn’t intentional, it’s clearly serving that purpose.

It’s much easier for them to play defense about her saying something dumb rather than playing defense about Romney saying something clearly immoral.

. . . in the end if the worst you can say about her statement is that she believes a car company still exists even though they closed in the 80s… oh well.

It’s important to revisit Rep. Blackburn’s statement:

For workers in the auto industry, across the board, whether it is GM, whether it’s Nissan, whether it’s American Motors, individuals are very concerned about the impact of regulation that the EPA and OSHA and other federal agencies are heaping on our manufacturers.

You’re missing the far bigger lie, which I observe nearly all people do. She’s falsely framing herself as someone with deep knowledge of the auto industry specifically, knowing the perspective of specific people within specific companies. This is to buttress her argument as coming from an authority. Then she demonstrates by her list she’s lied about who she’s actually interacted with since American Motors no longer exists. But far worse, she’s lying about posing as someone who is knowledgeable where she then demonstrates knowing jack shit.

It’s a like a creationist speaker speaking at a church. First they’re lying about the science, but to get people to consider their arguments, they also pose as if they’ve studied the science when in fact only a handful of creationists have ever demonstrated such knowledge. A classic argument from authority prelude before launching into their typical Gish Gallop. Here Rep. Blackburn wants us to believe her by claiming her position comes from interactions she’s had with specific “workers” and “individuals”, but then shoots herself in the foot by essentially referring to what is now an imaginary company with imaginary employees Rep. Blackburn has magically talked to where they’re concerned about the uppity black socialist in the White House.

Probably the biggest recent whoppers of this sort of defective argument in presidential politics are these three:
1) Sen. McCain in 2008 claiming the “economy was strong” where he framed it as if he had inside knowledge regarding the state of the economy.
2) Sarah Palin posing as a policy expert on energy. Sen. McCain also repeatedly claimed few knew as much as she did about energy policy.
3) Mitt Romney referring to this business experience as proof he not only understands economic policy but would exploit his knowledge to kick-start the economy.

You’re missing the far bigger lie… She’s falsely framing herself as someone with deep knowledge of the auto industry specifically, knowing the perspective of specific people within specific companies. This is to buttress her argument as coming from an authority.

Bingo x10. It’s almost universal, and it needs to be pointed out much more often. Preferably by the journalists who are interviewing these people at the time that they’re being interviewed…